Play Bridge: Using a Jacoby with a flair

The bidding: North opens the bidding with his 11 points. He has an opening hand with an easy rebid that is better than a lot of 12-point openers.

North is too strong to splinter, so he bids Jacoby Two No Trump showing four-card support and opening or better. South shows a singleton club. He is required to do this even with a minimum opener. His 11 points is actually a good opener.

North now jumps to Four Hearts showing a heart void. If North had bid Three Hearts, that would just show the Heart Ace (first round control). South knows that North is too strong to make a direct splinter bid, so he asks for keycards.

He finds that they have all the keycards outside of partner’s Heart void including the Queen of trump and asks partner if he has third round control in Diamonds by bidding Six Diamonds. Six Spades says “No.” Six Notrump says “Yes, and it is the Queen,” and Seven Spades says “Yes, and it is a doubleton.”

The Lead: The worst lead is the Jack of Diamonds. Opponents are in Seven because they have first round control in every suit. Furthermore, if partner gets the lead once, the contract is set.

It is also obvious from the bidding that East has a Spade void, so the defense has no trump control. Leading a Diamond will only alert the declarer to a bad split and may help him in a suit in which he has length.

A safe lead is needed so West leads a small trump.

The play: Declarer wins the trump lead in his hand and ruffs a diamond. He plays a small trump back to his hand and ruffs another heart with the last trump in dummy. He does not dare come back to his hand on a diamond for fear that the person who originally had four trump could conceivably have a diamond void. South cashes the Ace of Clubs and ruffs a club. He draws trump, runs diamonds and claims.

Result: Declarer wins five Spades in his hand, five Diamonds, two shorthand ruffs and the Ace of Clubs for 13 tricks. Seven Spades making seven for +1510.